An “Arlo” strip in the classic the-syndicate-wasn’t-paying-attention-that-day tradition — submitted by Jim Moore

An “Arlo” strip (sent in by Jim Moore)
Is there any explanation that doesn’t make this strip blatantly Arloworthy? And a candidate for the Ewww Files as well?

To give you an idea how many people sent me this Get Fuzzy strip: Six people sent it before Nicole did.

Quite a few people sent this to me this morning (not surprisingly, Nicole was the first). Not only does it clearly belong on the Arlo Page, but I’m at a loss to understand the internal logic: Did he think the door opened because he was happy to see it?

So what exactly is coming out of Francis’s nose, and why?

Lola sent in this Argyle Sweater strip

More naked people in the daily paper, courtesy of Nine to Five, Nicole, and Jim Moore

Davan’s final line (and for those of you unfamiliar with Something Positive, he and PeeJee do not have a sexual relationship)

The Comments Box is all the way on the bottom of this page, because I have no idea how to move it.

Jeff McAndrew: Tell me that the alien’s finger isn’t what i think it is. And they even went so far as to make it a fleshy color!

Nicole: “Don’t look now, but Eve is totally topless. This is Jim Borgman and was published July 11 ”

lj: Seems to me, he is chastising himself for not living up to his own standards, or not feeling himself lately… sort of like saying, ”I screwed up, damn me.”

Nicole: The man’s hand is in his pocket, there are lines near his shoulder that indicate his arm is moving. Do I need to spell out what he is doing????? “Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink”

Troy could be the man’s pet name for his …… male member and it is not responding to his self amorous advances. [Or] Troy could be the name of the man himself, and he is distressed that, after promising himself that he would no longer perform this particular act in public finds himself at it once again. Like the riddle of the sphinx, or which came first: the chicken or the egg, I fear we will never know.

Brian E. Williams: The only way this doesn’t belong on the Arlo Page, and even picking up an Arlo Award, is if “Troy” is the name of the pet squirrel he keeps in his pocket.

(Click here to return to the main Comics I Don’t Understand site, and here to visit our old Arlo page)

Krushner’s on to something, actually. Maybe I’m just species-ist, but unless the Discovery Channel censors the good parts, animal sex doesn’t look all that sexy. Half the time it looks like rape, the other half of the time they look uninterested. Kudos to these two for trying to spice things up.

Steve, two things: The Arlo Award is given to a cartoonist who slips something past the syndicate censors. The Arlo Page itself also includes comics that might offend people or might be unsuitable for children. I probably would have called it the NSFW Page if that term had been in common use years ago, rather than naming the page after… um… Arlo Guthrie.

Back to the comic itself, “who the hell is Roadblock?” was pretty much the issue.

Willis never lets us know whether Mike is tougher than Roadblock or not. Since Mike is technically dead and therefore a zombie (this continuity point is probably one of the best parts of Shortpacked… that and Mike’s sexuality.)

That is the strip (probably a little bittie bit NSFW) where Mike declares his sexuality: “I’m whatever you don’t want me to be, babe.”

…

I’m a Shortpacked geek. Wow. I HAVE been reading the strip since it came out, but I just realized, I am a Shortpacked geek. I am a geek about a comic strip that’s about being a geek for 80’s nostalgia. That makes me a geek SQUARED.

Charlene: Neither are oblivious to the possibility. There was an entire storyline about this years ago, where their mutual friend spilled the beans about Davan’s crush to her, and Davan assured her that he was totally over it.

The non-dirty explanation is that he expected her to make some further comment that he could exploit. But this is S*P: no way. No way in this world.

Nicole; the entire strip is a riff on manga conventions. In manga you show sweat with a giant sweat drop superimposed over their head … the teardrop thing. It’s because they’re at a (shudder) anime convention.

The PvP strip doesn’t really belong on the Arlo page – both the sweatdrop and the nosebleed are standard Manga/Anime shorthand. Sweatdrop = nervousness. Nosebleed = teenage boy embarrassed by his attraction to a girl. The sweatdrop isn’t remotely sexual, and while the nosebleed does indicate attraction, it’s very mild – you see this kind of thing in kid’s comics all the time.

If you look at it a little differently it could be a certain male body part protruding upward under his clothes. The “gadoosh” I took to be a whooshing sound that happened because …. well it happened so fast.

But I think I could be forgiven for that interpretation since it IS on the Arlo page

Are we looking at the same comic? I don’t see anything coming out of his nose in any of the panels, but I do see he has an embarrassed grin in the last one. The thing on the side of his head looks like a horn … he’s gone horney. Yeah, it belongs on the Arlo page. Not really funny, just typical male behaviour IMHO.

No, it isn’t a side effect of hypertension. It’s an in-joke for anime fans. In anime, sudden overwhelming lust is conventionally portrayed by a nosebleed. So he was complaining about how anime people act weird, and then he acts weird like an anime character.

I think the cross-shaped thing on the head is meant to be a throbbing vein. Those usually pop up when a character is extremely angry or vexed. I don’t think it’s really appropriate for this situation, I think the artist just wanted to cram in as many anime/manga conventions as he could.

Actually, the meaning is not at all “mild”. From an MIT article on anime conventions:

“The frequent nosebleeds (and subsequent embarassment) of male anime characters are related to a folk-belief that sexual excitement in men leads to a change in blood-pressure, which in turn can cause a nose-bleed. There’s a subsidiary belief more profuse the flow, the greater the excitement.”

I’m not sure why the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has information available on conventions in anime and manga.

“Thanks Steve – clearly I do not follow manga or anime. As I told my son, I like my animation actually animated.” -Nicole

Well, it applies to print comics as well… it’s just a whole ‘nother universe, really.

“… while the nosebleed does indicate attraction, it’s very mild – you see this kind of thing in kid’s comics all the time.” -FrozenCapybara

Yeah, but in Manga the standards are a little different. In kids (around 13) manga you’ll see breasts with nipples… exhibit A, Ranma 1/2, a cute little manga that’s aimed from elementary to junior high range readers.

Actually, this joke makes a lot of sense to me. Have you ever been in a building where the door had a sensor looking for the security keycard and it was sensitive enough to recognize it in your pocket?

People walk up and waggle their butts. Unusual hip gyrations. I mean, you get some really comical imagery.

As Steve said people (mostly men — sorry guys) who keep their security cards in their wallet and keep their wallet in their back pocket will perform all sorts of gymnastic maneuvers to place their butt against the sensor to gain entry.

Wally seeing this behavior, thinks it is the gyrations that cause the door to open not the card.

So he stands at the door doing his Wally dance until the door opens. Because he keeps his wallet in his front pocket, he soon learns that thrusting his hips at the door will get the desired results

In my office we have to wear the security cards with ID cards on our front, either on the shirt pocket, around the neck, or hanging from the waist. The “sensor hump” (as we call it) is performed many times a day. This Dilbert cartoon gave me a good laugh-out-loud. 🙂

on B.C. – Unless Hart had never been in a motel, I say the answer is “no” to the Arloworthiness question. I definitely felt Ewww Files potential however.
Magic Fingers is only a vibration device, no manipulation feeling of any kind (at least in my quarter-feeding experience). a case of over-selling, I’ve always thought. Still better than the radio.